NBA Free Agency 2017: The Golden State Warriors Ripple Effect Is Reshaping the Whole League

Chris Paul to the Rockets! Paul George to the Thunder! Nathaniel Friedman attempts to make sense of what's so far been a wacky offseason.

Human existence is absurd and void of deeper meaning. Still, every day billions of people get up and go about their lives because the alternative is unthinkable. You would never praise them for their resilience. It’s just the way our species works.

In the wake of the Warriors’ title, the NBA faces a similar dilemma. When Golden State signed Kevin Durant, they freakishly raised the bar on the level of talent required to contend. Coming off of the Warriors’ facile title run, it’s become clear that very good is no longer good enough. Unless a team has a cheat code like LeBron James or Gregg Popovich on hand, the only way to get there is by stockpiling All-Stars. So far, this frenzied, unpredictable offseason has seen the rich get richer and the East get decimated as playoff teams scrambled to keep up. There’s desperation in the air. But to what end?

With Chris Paul, Paul George, Jimmy Butler, and Gordon Hayward all changing teams, you’d expect the league’s competitive balance to have entered into a state of dramatic flux. Instead, all this activity has thrown it into stark relief. The Warriors don’t just sport four Hall of Famers in their prime. Steve Kerr is a mastermind of a coach. The supporting cast is state-of-the-art and continues to improve. The front office is canny enough to have largely built this team from the ground up. And the ownership is fully committed to keeping this would-be dynasty intact. It’s a perfect storm that no team could reasonably hope to replicate.

But resignation just isn’t an option in sports. The confidence of elite NBA players stops just shy of foolhardy. It’s been built up by years of being the best player on the court; when that stops being the case, they still need to believe it in order to survive at the highest level. While most players would acknowledge that Golden State poses a major challenge, they can’t even entertain the notion that they are completely, totally fucked (which they probably are). Admitting this would be a dramatic reversal of everything they know about themselves and the world.

That’s why, of all the big moves of the past week, none resonated quite like the Paul George trade. Sam Presti just handed Russell Westbrook—an athlete who has never once entertained the notion that victory was out of reach—maybe the closest thing possible to another Kevin Durant. George can score in bunches but doesn’t constantly need the ball in his hands; he can make plays without spearheading the offense; and his defensive prowess can set an opponent’s teeth on edge. The ideal weapon to pair with Westbrook, PG also has a swagger to his game that puts him on the same page as the thermonuclear guard. The Thunder still can’t touch the Warriors. But we’d love to watch this team trying to convince us otherwise. That’s the only way to spare ourselves from fatalism.

It’s also why we’re waiting with bated breath to see just how Mike D’Antoni will make sense of a James Harden/Chris Paul backcourt. This experiment could blow up in his face or make for an even stronger Houston team than last season. But no one’s seriously predicting that the Rockets have a shot at a title—even if Paul’s opt-in for a year suggests that he feels otherwise. They’re a large-scale curiosity that could result in plenty of amazing, devious basketball. And maybe that’s enough in the present-day NBA. Short of abandoning the sport, which isn’t a realistic option, we’re going to need to find new ways to watch. Sure, every night has a winner and a loser. When it comes to year-long storylines, though, we may have to learn to embrace aesthetics as a viable alternative to title dreams. (The same is true to a lesser degree in Minnesota. No matter what else happens in the league, it will be damn fun to watch Karl-Anthony Towns and Jimmy Butler play together.)

Cynics will ceaselessly remind you that professional sports leagues aren’t just high-level competition. They’re also a multi-billion-dollar business premised on entertaining fans. That’s certainly the way most NBA owners think. For them, success isn’t necessarily measured in terms of titles. It comes down to putting quality product on the floor that will sell tickets. Granted, hometown fans have a rooting interest that makes engaged from the jump. But they’ve got another advantage working for them: While every sport has details and moments that can be enjoyed independent of the final outcome, the NBA has actively encouraged people to consume the game on an increasingly modular level. We saw this in the league’s embrace of Vine and its ongoing efforts to promote the styles and personalities of player who aren’t heading to the Finals anytime soon.

Players may not show up every night but their pride and reputation are always on the line. That’s why the NBA can always count on them putting on a show. Coaches can also thrive in futility. They are grimly determined to prove their mettle by making the most of what they’re given of any given night. It’s possible for them to find common cause with both fans and owners. It’s front offices, tasked with assembling personnel to gives their franchise the greatest chance of winning titles while focusing on the big picture, that are getting left in the lurch. It’s hard to imagine roster-building as an exercise in passion or creativity, or conceive of a general manager who, willfully blind to facts, embraces the absurd in the way that players and coaches can do.

Front offices therefore have three options: Chase the Warriors, set their sights on a post-Warriors future, or pray for Kevin Durant or Stephen Curry to suffer a serious injury. The first seems disingenuous; any sensible GM—the only kind of GM that matters—has to know that catching the Warriors will be nearly impossible. But they have to do something and the NBA arms race is all-encompassing, even indiscriminate. Did Daryl Morey, whose personnel decisions have always followed a strict vision, trade for Chris Paul out of a sense of obligation? Could he really afford to pass up that opportunity? Will it even make a difference? The ideal ends itself to Sam Hinkie-style extremism, which all of sudden no longer feels like nihilism. The Sixers, who added veteran sharpshooter J.J. Redick to their young core, are early favorites for League Pass Team of the Year. Not coincidentally, they’re a work-in-progress expected to peak several years from now, around the same time that Golden State (presumably) starts to wane.

"That’s the state of the league circa now: The Warriors reign supreme, the Cavaliers and Spurs are at least within striking distance, and everyone else is left gawking from afar."

Then there’s Danny Ainge, who this offseason has faced criticism for trying to have it both ways. On paper, Ainge is in a truly enviable position: He presides over a team that went 53-29 and has also accumulated an impressive portfolio of future draft picks. In any other epoch, Boston would be able to play for a title now and accumulate young players to carry the franchise past the prime of Isaiah Thomas and Al Horford. But based on this year’s playoffs, it’s safe to say that Boston has a long way to go before they catch up with Cleveland—much less go toe-to-toe with Golden State.

That Boston could conceivably close the talent gap only makes things more urgent: Ainge has the assets and flexibility to go after All-Stars. But doing so would come at the expense of the team’s long-term prospects. The dream was always Paul George and Gordon Hayward. They signed Hayward and, in any rational universe, would’ve been able to swing a deal for George. Alas, Indiana opted for pettiness over self-interest, a loophole that Ainge’s logic simply doesn’t account for. That said, Boston is now rumored to be interested in Marc Gasol, which suggests Ainge isn’t done yet. Gasol’s sudden introduction into the conversation seems about right for this offseason, where anything can happen and yet almost nothing feels sufficient. Ainge may not be able to embrace the moment like coaches or players but this only makes his embrace of the absurd more compelling. He goes through the motions and attempts to adapt to the situation because he has no other choice.

That’s the state of the league circa now: The Warriors reign supreme, the Cavaliers and Spurs are at least within striking distance, and everyone else is left gawking from afar. Maybe this offseason has one more curveball left in it, like Gasol to Boston or Carmelo Anthony landing with Cleveland or Houston. But for all the activity we’ve seen, it’s hard to shake the feeling that nothing’s really changed and that for the foreseeable future, we may have to make due with a thing where things don’t quite make sense. That’s only a bad thing if you believe the NBA is title or bust. In fact, the way we consume the league going forward may be less of a radical departure than it might initially seem.

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